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Dear Friends and Allies, My passion for public service stems from my upbringing in the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. My parents came to this country as undocumented immigrants seeking better economic opportunities. My birth in Los Angeles in 1974 provided a path to legal residency for my parents. Approximately seven years after their residency, they became U.S. Citizens. Both of my parents worked extremely hard in working-class jobs while my two older siblings and I attended local public schools. Together we spent the first 18 years of my life in the same two bedroom apartment in The Wyvernwood Gardens, an apartment complex with over 10,000 residents. There,…Continue reading

The green and clean energy economy is emerging, but who is at the forefront? What comes to mind first may be those who can afford to buy into the green economy. However, those who do not have access to financial wealth, can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods or own Teslas typically use less water, electricity, and gas. These folks — often people of color — already conserve the most natural resources and would like to do more, but are overshadowed by the White-dominated environmental narrative and miss out on clean energy technology. Since income remains a key limit on access to clean energy technology, low-income folks of color have…Continue reading

The Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last September sparked a flurry of states, cities, and companies to announce commitments for climate action. California Governor Jerry Brown, signed SB 100, legislation that puts California on a path to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. While SB 100 is a huge victory, it’s not enough to get us to a just, fair, and sustainable future. Our car-dependent transportation system not only impedes climate progress, it makes many of our other problems worse. Transportation is responsible for nearly 50 percent of California’s total greenhouse gas emissions and they are on the rise. A report by the California Air Resources Board found…Continue reading

What’s it like to be 3,500 racial justice organizers deep? It feels like home — and liberation — when you’re at Facing Race. Before I even arrived at the Cobo Center in Detroit, I stopped in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest Muslim population in the country. I saw storefront signs with halal written on them, hijabis were on every street corner. I felt safe, I felt belonging in a place I’ve never been to. To feel that connection is so meaningful, especially in a time when the Ohlone land I was born and raised on often feels alienating. As a first time attendee at the Facing Race Conference,…Continue reading

Tell people their gas taxes are going up and they will riot, literally. Tell people that 62 individuals hold the same amount of wealth as the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population and we don’t blink an eye. Okay, maybe we do a hard blink but we certainly don’t riot. Or perhaps gas tax riots are actually severe wealth inequality riots in disguise? France has been embroiled in mass and violent protests to proposed diesel and gas tax increases that have forced France’s government to suspend its plans to increase taxes and to also immediately freeze prices on electricity and home heating fuel.…Continue reading

The morning after the United Nations IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) dropped its “Global Warming of 1.5°C” report I felt almost every emotion available: angry, scared, frustrated, heartbroken, distraught. The report calls for “rapid, far reaching, and unprecedented systems change” in order to maintain a global temperature rise of no more than 1.5°C in the Anthropocene — the era of human-caused climate change. 1.5° global temperature increase is key because the catastrophes the world would experience between 1.5° and 2° are stark. Coral reefs would almost entirely disappear with 2° of warming, with just 10–30% of existing reefs surviving at 1.5°C. Our behavior, from the industrial revolution to the…Continue reading

A recent encounter on Twitter with a bunch of climate change denial types sent my memory flying back nearly 20 years to my days as a reporter and an eerily parallel run-in. Now as then, I realized, we’re face-to-face with a suicide cult. Climate change threatens us all, of course, but it’s of special concern here at The Greenlining Institute because low-income communities of color have the fewest resources to deal with its effects and often suffer most from the toxic air pollution generated by our fossil fuel economy. In addition, these communities most urgently need the jobs and investment that the clean energy economy will bring – or at…Continue reading

I come from a community — Pacoima, California — and a family where love, humor, and culture ensure my people’s survival. Mine is a family of home-cooked enchiladas, loud and long-lasting dance fiestas, and unconditional love. We turn to our values to sustain our lives, even as low-income migrants and first-generation folks. Though all odds are against low-income people of color, we resist and survive in the face of environmental racism and other obstacles. Surviving is the only way we know how to live since the power of place has shaped our lived outcomes, for good and for worse. My beautiful Pacoima roots my passion and diligence in the work…Continue reading

Let’s get clear on the facts: The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, still stands. Despite the president’s claims to have “repealed the core” of Obamacare, the ACA continues to provide coverage for millions of Americans across the nation. They want you to believe that the ACA is obsolete. Californians can prove otherwise by signing up for health coverage through Covered California’s open enrollment, from October 15, 2018, to January 15, 2019. By doing so, you can ensure that you and your loved ones will have access to quality health care and preventive services. #AlternativeFacts about Obamacare continue to run rampant. In order to clear up any misinformation, here…Continue reading

Looking for a tasteless Halloween costume? A company that I prefer not to name will happily sell you a “Sexy Women’s 4 Piece Indian Chief” costume for $69.95 plus shipping. And yes, it’s as tacky, demeaning and stereotypical as you might imagine. And it’s just the tip of the commercial bigotry iceberg. Plenty of companies will happily sell you Halloween costumes based on sexist and racist stereotypes. You look at some of this stuff and think, “Really? In 2018???” Yeah, this stuff is still here. In fairness, these sorts of crude stereotypes occur in pop culture less frequently now than when I was a child in the 1960s. I vividly…Continue reading